Currently, certain types of floor coverings are made using staple fibers that are flat needle punched with or without a woven backing. The woven backing may be a woven fabric, a ribbon scrim, or the like, all of which backings are used primarily for stability and strength. Heretofore, floor coverings made of needle punched staple fibers with a woven backing have never made use of the color of the threads or fibers or ribbons of the woven backing as part of the face coloration or of the decorative effect portrayed by the floor covering.
A desirable styling feature of a floor covering is the provision of individual tufts (loops) or clusters of tufts (loops) which have a color contrasting with the color of the majority of surrounding tufts (loops). To get this feature with current processes requires that the floor covering be a tufted product where the individual tufts or clusters of tufts of contrasting colors are created by interjecting different color yarns in the tufting apparatus to get the randomly scattered tufts or clusters of tufts of contrasting colors. Tufted floor covering is generally more expensive to manufacture.
In the plain or flat needle punched floor covering currently available, the nearest approach to the feature of contrasting colors on the face surface of the floor covering results from using a blend of colorations of the non-woven fibers in the batt such that when the blended fiber batt is flat needle punched, the resulting floor covering has a homogenous, even heather look. The same even heather look is produced by other processing methods operating on the blended staple fiber batt such as a textured or structured needle punch process. Although the homogenous, even heather look is desirable and much used, it does not have the desired styling feature of the unevenly spaced or scattered individual tufts or clusters of tufts attained in tufted floor covering.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.